Sunday, 5 August 2018

The International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technology (ICT), has launched a new research initiative to identify emerging and future ICT sector network demands, beyond 2030 and the advances expected of IMT-2020 (5G) systems. This work will be carried out by the newly established ITU Focus Group on Technologies for Network 2030, which is open to all interested parties.The ITU focus group aims to guide the global ICT community in developing a "Network 2030" vision for future ICTs. This will include new concepts, new architecture, new protocols – and new solutions – that are fully backward compatible, so as to support both existing and new applications."The work of the ITU Focus Group on Technologies for 'Network 2030' will provide network system experts around the globe with a very valuable international reference point from which to guide the innovation required to support ICT use cases through 2030 and beyond," said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao.These ICT use cases will span new media such as hologrammes, a new generation of augmented and virtual reality applications, and high-precision communications for 'tactile' and 'haptic' applications in need of processing a very high volume of data in near real-time – extremely high throughput and low latency. Emphasizing this need, the focus group's chairman, Huawei's Richard Li, said, "This Focus Group will look at new media, new services and new architectures. Holographic type communications will have a big part to play in industry, agriculture, education, entertainment – and in many other fields. Supporting such capabilities will call for very high throughput in the range of hundreds of gigabits per second or even higher."The ITU Focus Group on Technologies for 'Network 2030' is co-chaired by Verizon's Mehmet Toy, Rostelecom's Alexey Borodin, China Telecom's Yuan Zhang, Yutaka Miyake from KDDI Research, and is coordinated through ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Sector – which works with ITU's 193 Member States and more than 800 industry and academic members to establish international standards for emerging ICT innovations.The ITU focus group reports to and will inform a new phase of work of the ITU standardization expert group for 'Future Networks' – Study Group 13. It will also strengthen and leverage collaborative relationships with and among other standards development organizations including: The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Data Communications (ACM SIGCOMM), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' Communications Society (IEEE ComSoc).

The FG NET-2030, as a platform to study and advance international networking technologies, will investigate the future network architecture, requirements, use cases, and capabilities of the networks for the year 2030 and beyond.

The objectives include:

• To study, review and survey existing technologies, platforms, and standards for identifying the gaps and challenges towards Network 2030, which are not supported by the existing and near future networks like 5G/IMT-2020.• To formulate all aspects of Network 2030, including vision, requirements, architecture, novel use cases, evaluation methodology, and so forth.• To provide guidelines for standardization roadmap.• To establish liaisons and relationships with other SDOs.

An ITU interview with Dr. Richard Li, Huawei, Chairman of the ITU-T FG on Network 2030 is available on YouTube here.

A recent presentation by Dr. Richard Li on this topic is embedded below:

Sunday, 19 March 2017

In an earlier post I mentioned that there will be three different types of spectrum that would be needed for 5G; coverage layer, capacity layer and high throughput layer. There is now a consensus within the industry for this approach.

In a 5G seminar, back in Jan, there were a few speakers who felt that there is an informal agreement about the frequencies that will be used. One such slide from Ofcom could be seen in the picture above. Ofcom has also recently released a report expanding on this further.

Analysys Mason has nicely summarized the bands suggested by Ofcom and possibly available in the UK for 5G in the picture above.

Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) has also nicely summarised the bands under investigations and trials as follows:

Finally, as a reminder, list of bands originally approved for IMT-2020 (5G) as follows:

Another potential band, not being mentioned above is the 66-76GHz spectrum. This band is adjacent to the 60 GHz Wi-Fi (57 GHz - 66 GHz). Lessons learned from that band can be applied to the 5G band too.

Monday, 6 March 2017

ITU has just agreed on key 5G performance requirements for IMT-2020. A new draft report ITU-R M.[IMT-2020.TECH PERF REQ] is expected to be finally approved by ITU-R Study Group 5 at its next meeting in November 2017. The press release says "5G mobile systems to provide lightning speed, ultra-reliable communications for broadband and IoT"

The following is from the ITU draft report:

The key minimum technical performance requirements defined in this document are for the purpose of consistent definition, specification, and evaluation of the candidate IMT-2020 radio interface technologies (RITs)/Set of radio interface technologies (SRIT) in conjunction with the development of ITU-R Recommendations and Reports, such as the detailed specifications of IMT-2020. The intent of these requirements is to ensure that IMT-2020 technologies are able to fulfil the objectives of IMT-2020 and to set a specific level of performance that each proposed RIT/SRIT needs to achieve in order to be considered by ITU-R for IMT-2020.Peak data rate: Peak data rate is the maximum achievable data rate under ideal conditions (in bit/s), which is the received data bits assuming error-free conditions assignable to a single mobile station, when all assignable radio resources for the corresponding link direction are utilized (i.e., excluding radio resources that are used for physical layer synchronization, reference signals or pilots, guard bands and guard times). This requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the eMBB usage scenario. The minimum requirements for peak data rate are as follows:–Downlink peak data rate is 20 Gbit/s.–Uplink peak data rate is 10 Gbit/s.Peak spectral efficiency: Peak spectral efficiency is the maximum data rate under ideal conditions normalised by channel bandwidth (in bit/s/Hz), where the maximum data rate is the received data bits assuming error-free conditions assignable to a single mobile station, when all assignable radio resources for the corresponding link direction are utilized (i.e. excluding radio resources that are used for physical layer synchronization, reference signals or pilots, guard bands and guard times).This requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the eMBB usage scenario.The minimum requirements for peak spectral efficiencies are as follows: –Downlink peak spectral efficiency is 30 bit/s/Hz.–Uplink peak spectral efficiency is 15 bit/s/Hz.User experienced data rate: User experienced data rate is the 5% point of the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the user throughput. User throughput (during active time) is defined as the number of correctly received bits, i.e. the number of bits contained in the service data units (SDUs) delivered to Layer 3, over a certain period of time.This requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the related eMBB test environment.The target values for the user experienced data rate are as follows in the Dense Urban – eMBB test environment: –Downlink user experienced data rate is 100 Mbit/s. –Uplink user experienced data rate is 50 Mbit/s. 5th percentile user spectral efficiency: The 5th percentile user spectral efficiency is the 5% point of the CDF of the normalized user throughput. The normalized user throughput is defined as the number of correctly received bits, i.e., the number of bits contained in the SDUs delivered to Layer 3, over a certain period of time, divided by the channel bandwidth and is measured in bit/s/Hz. This requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the eMBB usage scenario.–Indoor Hotspot – eMBB - Downlink: 0.3 bit/s/HzUplink: 0.21 bit/s/Hz–Dense Urban – eMBB - Downlink: 0.225 bit/s/HzUplink: 0.15 bit/s/Hz–Rural – eMBB - Downlink: 0.12 bit/s/HzUplink: 0.045 bit/s/Hz

Average spectral efficiency: Average spectral efficiency is the aggregate throughput of all users (the number of correctly received bits, i.e. the number of bits contained in the SDUs delivered to Layer 3, over a certain period of time) divided by the channel bandwidth of a specific band divided by the number of TRxPs and is measured in bit/s/Hz/TRxP.This requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the eMBB usage scenario.–Indoor Hotspot – eMBB - Downlink: 9 bit/s/Hz/TRxPUplink: 6.75 bit/s/Hz/TRxP–Dense Urban – eMBB - Downlink: 7.8 bit/s/Hz/TRxPUplink: 5.4 bit/s/Hz/TRxP–Rural – eMBB - Downlink: 3.3 bit/s/Hz/TRxPUplink: 1.6 bit/s/Hz/TRxPArea traffic capacity: Area traffic capacity is the total traffic throughput served per geographic area (in Mbit/s/m2). The throughput is the number of correctly received bits, i.e. the number of bits contained in the SDUs delivered to Layer 3, over a certain period of time.This requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the related eMBB test environment.The target value for Area traffic capacity in downlink is 10 Mbit/s/m2 in the Indoor Hotspot – eMBB test environment.User plane latency: User plane latency is the contribution of the radio network to the time from when the source sends a packet to when the destination receives it (in ms). It is defined as the one-way time it takes to successfully deliver an application layer packet/message from the radio protocol layer 2/3 SDU ingress point to the radio protocol layer 2/3 SDU egress point of the radio interface in either uplink or downlink in the network for a given service in unloaded conditions, assuming the mobile station is in the active state. This requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the eMBB and URLLC usage scenarios.The minimum requirements for user plane latency are–4 ms for eMBB–1 ms for URLLC assuming unloaded conditions (i.e., a single user) for small IP packets (e.g., 0 byte payload + IP header), for both downlink and uplink.Control plane latency: Control plane latency refers to the transition time from a most “battery efficient” state (e.g. Idle state) to the start of continuous data transfer (e.g. Active state).This requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the eMBB and URLLC usage scenarios.The minimum requirement for control plane latency is 20 ms. Proponents are encouraged to consider lower control plane latency, e.g. 10 ms.Connection density: Connection density is the total number of devices fulfilling a specific quality of service (QoS) per unit area (per km2).This requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the mMTC usage scenario.The minimum requirement for connection density is 1 000 000 devices per km2.Energy efficiency: Network energy efficiency is the capability of a RIT/SRIT to minimize the radio access network energy consumption in relation to the traffic capacity provided. Device energy efficiency is the capability of the RIT/SRIT to minimize the power consumed by the device modem in relation to the traffic characteristics. Energy efficiency of the network and the device can relate to the support for the following two aspects:a)Efficient data transmission in a loaded case;b)Low energy consumption when there is no data.Efficient data transmission in a loaded case is demonstrated by the average spectral efficiency This requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the eMBB usage scenario.The RIT/SRIT shall have the capability to support a high sleep ratio and long sleep duration. Proponents are encouraged to describe other mechanisms of the RIT/SRIT that improve the support of energy efficient operation for both network and device.Reliability: Reliability relates to the capability of transmitting a given amount of traffic within a predetermined time duration with high success probabilityThis requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the URLLC usage scenario. The minimum requirement for the reliability is 1-10-5 success probability of transmitting a layer 2 PDU (protocol data unit) of 32 bytes within 1 ms in channel quality of coverage edge for the Urban Macro-URLLC test environment, assuming small application data (e.g. 20 bytes application data + protocol overhead). Proponents are encouraged to consider larger packet sizes, e.g. layer 2 PDU size of up to 100 bytes.Mobility: Mobility is the maximum mobile station speed at which a defined QoS can be achieved (in km/h).The following classes of mobility are defined:–Stationary: 0 km/h–Pedestrian: 0 km/h to 10 km/h–Vehicular: 10 km/h to 120 km/h–High speed vehicular: 120 km/h to 500 km/hMobility classes supported:Indoor Hotspot – eMBB: Stationary, PedestrianDense Urban – eMBB: Stationary, Pedestrian, Vehicular (up to 30 km/h)Rural – eMBB: Pedestrian, Vehicular, High speed vehicular Mobility interruption time: Mobility interruption time is the shortest time duration supported by the system during which a user terminal cannot exchange user plane packets with any base station during transitions.This requirement is defined for the purpose of evaluation in the eMBB and URLLC usage scenarios.The minimum requirement for mobility interruption time is 0 ms.Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum aggregated system bandwidth. The bandwidth may be supported by single or multiple radio frequency (RF) carriers. The bandwidth capability of the RIT/SRIT is defined for the purpose of IMT-2020 evaluation.The requirement for bandwidth is at least 100 MHz. The RIT/SRIT shall support bandwidths up to 1 GHz for operation in higher frequency bands (e.g. above 6 GHz).

Sunday, 17 April 2016

NTT Docomo's recent technical journal has quite a few interesting 5G articles. While it is well known that 5G will be present in Japan in some or the other shape by 2020, for the summer Olympics, NTT Docomo started studying technologies for 5G in 2010. Some of these have probably ended in 4.5G, a.k.a. LTE-Advanced Pro.

While there are some interesting applications and services envisioned for 5G, I still think some of these can be met with LTE-A and some of them may not work with the initial versions of 5G

As far as 5G timetable is concerned, I recently posted a blog post on this topic here. Initial versions of 5G will have either little or no millimetre wave (mmWave) bands. This is because most of these would be finalised in 2019 after WRC-19 has concluded. It may be a touch challenge to move all the existing incumbents out of these bands or agree of a proper sharing mechanism.

'5G+' or '5G phase 3' will make extensive use of these higher frequency bands extensively in addition to the low and mid frequency bands. For anyone not familiar with different 5G phases, please see this earlier post here.

Enhanced LTE (or eLTE) is probably the same as LTE-Advanced Pro. Docomo believes that the initial 5G deployment would include new RAT but existing 4G core network which would be enhanced later for 5G+. Some of this new RAT technologies are discussed as well.

Core Network evolution is another interesting area. We looked at a possible architecture evolution here. To quote from the magazine:

The vision for future networks is shown in Figure 3. A future network will incorporate multiple radio technologies including LTE/LTE-Advanced, 5G New Radio Access Technology (RAT), and Wi-Fi, and be able to use them according to the characteristics of each service.Utilizing virtualization technologies, network slices optimized for service requirements such as high efficiency or low delay can be created. Common physical devices such as general-purpose servers and Software Defined Network (SDN) transport switches will be used, and these networks will be provided to service providers. Network slices can be used either on a one service per network basis to increase network independence for originality or security, or with multiple services on one slice to increase statistical multiplexing gain and provide services more economically.The specific functional architecture and the network topology for each network slice are issues to be studied in the future, but in the case of a network slice accommodating low latency services, for example, GateWay (GW) functions would need to be relatively close to radio access, service processing would be close to terminals, and routing control capable of finding the shortest route between terminals would be necessary to reduce latency. On the other hand, a network slice providing low volume communications to large numbers of terminals, such as with smart meters, would need functionality able to transmit that sort of data efficiently, and such terminals are fixed, so the mobility function can be omitted. In this way, by providing network slices optimized according to the requirements of each service, requirements can be satisfied while still reducing operating costs.

Tuesday, 3 February 2015

I had the pleasure of speaking at the CW (Cambridge Wireless) event ‘5G: A Practical Approach’. It was a very interesting event with great speakers. Over the next few weeks, I will hopefully add the presentations from some of the other speakers too.

In fact before the presentation (below), I had a few discussions over the twitter to validate if people agree with my assumptions. For those who use twitter, maybe you may want to have a look at some of these below: